Ari Goldbloom-Helzner
Senior, Montgomery Blair High School
Ari Goldbloom-Helzner can be as passionate about spending 14 hours at a math team competition as he is about playing the lead in a school musical.
The 17-year-old from Bethesda says he loves applying math to solve real-world problems, as he did last year as part of a five-person team from Montgomery Blair High School in the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge. At 7 a.m., students are given a topic to analyze quantitatively such as the economic pros and cons of going to college, and tasked with producing a 20-page research paper by 9 p.m.
“You have to have a lot of energy to do it,” says Ari, who describes the experience as exhilarating and rewarding. Last March, his team placed 13th out of about 1,100 that participated in the national competition.
In the science, math and computer science magnet program at Blair, Ari elevates the conversation in calculus and statistics classes by asking probing questions, says math teacher David Stein. “He’s not just working through problems to do well on tests, but he tries to understand why,” Stein says. “He seeks out difficult problems. …That makes him a pretty unique kid in a lot of ways.”
Some might find Ari’s fascination with music, alongside math, unusual, too, but not Sara Josey, Ari’s AP music theory teacher, who says both disciplines require the use of logic. “Ari is a stellar musician and has a beautiful voice,” says Josey, who is the teacher sponsor of InToneNation, a student-run a cappella group in which Ari serves as musical director. “He really comes alive on stage.”
Ari has performed in several school and community productions. When Blair put on six shows of Fiddler on the Roof last year and one of the leads dropped out, Ari played the role of the father for three nights and a younger character for three nights—a challenge to keep straight. He doesn’t rule out auditioning for a Broadway production someday, but will attend Brown University and keep his options open, taking courses in theater and applied math.